Hard Questions and Sustainable Solutions

[goozlefotz]

Hard Questions and Sustainable Solutions
By Chris Nelder | Friday, August 21st, 2009
The more I probe the hardest questions about the future of energy and
our best shot at sustainability, the more I am convinced that the real
questions are not about technology, but about human nature.
We have all the technology we need to make homes that produce their
own energy. We know how to build high-efficiency rail and sailing
ships. We know how to grow food organically and sustainably. We have
the science to create economic systems that internalize all effects
and operate in a beneficial manner. We've had the quantitative
knowledge for decades that we would eventually go into resource and
environmental overshoot.

We certainly have the technology to build an all-electric
infrastructure entirely powered by renewables. We will crack the
storage problem and all the other technical problems. I have no doubt
that the technology also exists to build an all-nuclear solution, or
even an all-hydrogen solution.

We have the technology to recycle all our water and reclaim all our
waste. We could even control our population. . . if we had the will.

We also know what real sustainability means. I don't think I have ever
seen it better put than by my friend Paul Hawken in his book, The
Ecology of Commerce:

Sustainability is an economic state where the demands placed upon the
environment by people and commerce can be met without reducing the
capacity of the environment to provide for future generations. It can
also be expressed in the simple terms of an economic golden rule for
the restorative economy: Leave the world better than you found it,
take no more than you need, try not to harm life or the environment,
make amends if you do.

The real problem is we don't want to act that way. Virtually no
business in existence meets that standard.

Technology and knowledge simply aren't the issue.

We don't want to think about having to put CO2 back in the ground
after we burn fuels. We don't want to worry about the waste from our
consumption. We don't like to hear about limits to anything we want to
do. We don't want to rearrange our stuff, our lifestyles, so that they
are truly sustainable. And we certainly don't like anybody telling us
we can't have more kids.

In fact we don't even like to think about it. . . so when the subject
comes up, we dismiss it with a flip comment like, "So I suppose you
want us all to be living in caves and working by candlelight?"

The upwelling of emotions that this topic inspires — especially fear —
usually makes a neutral and scientific discussion out of the
question.

And from fear, most people leap to faith: faith in the perfect wisdom
of free markets, faith in technology, faith in human ingenuity. No
rational discussion needed.

Nor is this aspect of human nature a news flash. ‘Twas ever so. At the
suggestion of a smart hedge fund manager buddy, I recently put
Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War in my reading queue for
clues on how humanity actually performs when presented with serious
fiscal and resource challenges.

I know some very smart people who are fully armed with the data on
resource depletion and peak oil, and who still choose to believe in a
cornucopian future where humanity acts wisely, humanely, justly, and
in concert with a view toward long-term planning, solving all of our
problems without any serious hardship.

This time, they contend, it will be different. After all, aren't we
entering the Age of Aquarius, when humanity finally embraces unity and
understanding?

Well, forgive me for being skeptical. The degree of cooperation they
envisage has no precedent whatsoever in human history, and there are
thousands of examples to the contrary.

In fact I was a bit shocked today when I looked back on my first opus
on sustainability ("Envisioning a Sustainable Future"), published in
my online magazine Better World 13 years ago, and realized that all of
the problems are the same now as they were then, only worse:
population, energy, water, extinction, environmental destruction,
flawed economic theory, global warming, and humanity's problem with
long-term planning.

It gave me pause. A long pause. Are all my efforts, and those of my
fellow agitators for sustainability, simply battling human nature? And
if so, what good is it?

Tantalizing Technologies and Hard Questions
At this point, 13 years later, the questions are even less tangible:
How will people respond to the coming changes? Can the political
support for truly sustainable solutions be marshaled? Will the economy
hold out long enough to accomplish the transformation? And how will
declining energy supply impede our efforts?

Certainly, in theory, we could replace 220 million light ICE cars and
trucks with electric models, and heavy transport trucks with a
combination of biofuels, natural gas, and hydraulic storage
technologies. The technology exists. But will we have the investment
and primary energy supply to build them, if we simply let the market
and politics guide us?

Consider "Cash for Clunkers." Using data and estimates from the New
York Times, I calculate that the program pays off in nine years at $70
oil, and in five years at $120 oil. In terms of effective investment
in the future, that's really not too bad. (The photovoltaic systems I
designed and sold in my previous career typically paid off in more
like 20 years, before incentives.)

Even so, Cash for Clunkers was reviled for swapping out over a quarter-
million cars for more efficient ones at a mere cost of $1 billion.
What are the chances we'll have the political support to do 220
million vehicles that way? Especially if oil gets more expensive and
we start having shortages and more heavy industry failures when oil
goes into decline a mere two years from now?

Sure, we can run airplanes on "renewable" synthetic diesel fuel made
from green waste such as yard clippings, and early investors in such
technologies will make a bundle. Rentech's (AMEX: RTK) recent
announcement that it had signed a deal to provide as much as 1.5
million gallons per year of the stuff to eight major airlines sent the
stock soaring over 360% in two weeks.

But 1.5 million gallons per year is nothing, and thanks to the
transport and handling cost of green waste, it doesn't scale. If it
requires transporting massive amounts of the feedstock with diesel-
powered trucks, it isn't sustainable either. Need we even discuss
recycled fryer oil?

Similar problems bedevil the alcohol fuels and biofuels, including
algae. There are many interesting approaches to both in the lab, but
for a long list of reasons (including water availability and the net
energy of the processes), they don't scale well. I don't see any of
the biofuels making more than a 50% gain from their current paltry
levels for a good many years yet — and then we'll be having so many
other problems with energy, water, food, and the economy, that the
long-term outlook gets very murky.

Sure, we can try to turn to Canada's tar sands and deepwater heavy oil
as the good cheap stuff runs out, but a cursory look at their net
energy tells us that doing so is an attempt to play the oil game into
overtime, not an attempt to do something sustainable. Thinking
otherwise is simply denial.

A straightforward analysis of the data suggest that once we take peak
oil, peak gas, and peak coal into account, there may not be enough
time left to use cheap fossil fuels for the decades it would take to
accomplish a transformation to true sustainability, let alone the
human will to do it. And the experience of the last year gives me no
confidence at all that the world can smoothly transit this inflection
point in economics.

Yet I want to foster inspiration, not desperation. For most people,
hope is as essential to survival as food, water, and air. And there is
hope — not for business as usual, but for a much better kind of
business. Not for endless growth, but for a more sustainable future.

But I am not one for false hope. I have endeavored to bring a dose of
realism to this column for three years now, and I will soldier on. The
opportunities to create sustainable solutions and profit from them are
probably greater now than they have ever been. It's our task to find
them, promote them, invest in them. . . and beyond that, hope for the
best.

Until next time,

Chris
Energy and Capital

[margareth]

I have had just short of 60 good years on the planet, and a good life
of relative ease. In 2025, when climate change really begins to harm
millions, and when it is predicted that the process of climate change
may escalate, I will be well over 70. What I consider is what will we
be passing on to the next generations? Will it be a world where they
can survive, or will they have to adapt to the dystopia that we will
leave them purely because of our greed, and laziness. Will that be the
epitaph of North American society?
Having said that, it becomes a simple matter to reduce my use of the
car, and at the same time become less fat and more fit. I can turn
down the thermostat in the winter, and put on a sweater when I am cool.
(This year I would like to wait until Nov. 15 to start the furnace. )
I can consume less, and I can choose products that have less
packaging.
In recent weeks; as I put in action a personal goal of leaving the car
at home on trips of less than 1.5 miles, I began to wonder what would
be the impact on pollution, and traffic etc. if everybody used that
yardstick. I understand that it is the short trips in heavy traffic
that waste the most fuel. And you know; criminals would have less
opportunity if the streets were more occupied with residents.

[harry]

Quite right both of you. Most of us on this forum have had the
benefit of living in good times & will probably be dead as bad times
come.
What amazed me during my visit to the USA was the scale of
consumerism. They spend their spare time wandering round stores
looking for something to buy. People out buying trash they didn't
need. Their houses were full of it. The strange need to be surrounded
with possessions. We have it to some extent in this country but
nowhere near as bad. Also the perpetual whinging about the price of
"gas". All their fuels/goods are actually extremely cheap compared to
European prices.
I think they've all got a big shock coming when the cost of fuel
rockets as it will.
As is necessary to pay for the expensive alternative energys.
Europeans will have less of a shock as our energy is already expensive
and most of them realise what is to come.

> ...
>
> read more »

[goozlefotz]

I would like challenge Harry to a test: I want to see if it is
possible for him to comment on ANY subject without badmouthing the US
and its people. It must be insulting to Cheech, who was Harry's host
on your visit here, to see him use that hospitality to find fault with
everything American. We all get tired of hearing it.

[margareth]

There are plenty of Europeans and Brits who shop just for the sake of
shopping, but their homes are smaller, so there is a limit to how
much. One thing that I noticed was the proliferation of Chinese made
souvenirs at virtually every cultural event. And of hawkers at the
side of the roads. I know Canadians who spend most of their time
shopping as well. We all do it, and to an extent I am swayed by the
offerings of many shops and "Sale items." What we all need to do is
find some other way to judge the condition of the economy.

> > and most of them realise what is to come.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Bill A]

The issue that margareth raised was "What will be the epitaph of
North American society?"

But in taking the long view of things, such as what will global
conditions be like in 2025, one needs to consider other countries as
being of greater importance to this issue than the USA. The following
data illustrates this point:

United States 7794.8 307,222,000
China 1138.3 1,338,612,968

The first column is Total energy consumption per capita.
(The data is given in kilogrammes of oil equivalent per year.)
The second column is total population


As you can see the USA currently utilizes seven times as much energy
per capita as does China, but China has 5 times the population of the
USA. From 1970 to 1995 China's energy consumption per capita has
DOUBLED.
So I think one major issue is what will be China's energy consumption
per capita in 20 years? Consequently the "epitaph of North American
society" might be "we helped the Chinese progress down the road to
prosperity, but their energy consumption and CO2 gas emissions
seriously degraded the world's environment" (I hope I don't sound too
chauvinistic in pointing this out)

[margareth]

Unfortunately much of the energy in use in China comes from coal...
mined with unsafe labour practices, and which allows intolerable
emissions... so what is the solution... China uses coal because it is
domestic and cheap, as is their labour. And in doing so threaten the
health of all who live there.
It should be noted that China has approximately the same range of
weather as does the US. Some areas are subtropical, and some areas are
almost subarctic. There are mountains and deserts.Still though; what
would it hurt us in North America, if we were to make the effort to
reduce our carbon footprint to match the Chinese? Quite possibly much
of the industry that has been exported overseas would be replaced by
more local products, that are grown, and manufactured by our friends
and neighbours. And that would reduce the number of large trucks on
the highways...

> > packaging.- Hide quoted text -

[plainolamerican]

I would like challenge Harry to a test: I want to see if it is
possible for him to comment on ANY subject without badmouthing the US
and its people.

----
I know another guy on the boards from England who does the same thing.

He finally admitted that he came to the USA just to get rich. He hires
illegal alien/criminals and is a slum lord.

I hope Harry is not as bad as Rebel.

[plainolamerican]

coal burning technology is getting cleaner everyday but it's is still
a problem

both the USA and China can create enough electricity by building more
hydro dams
some people just don't get it